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A Course in Miracles Used Book Review

A Course in Miracles is a self-study spiritual thought system which teaches forgiveness as the path to universal love and peace. The three-volume curriculum consists of a Text, Workbook for Students and Manual for Teachers.

It was scribed by Helen Schucman, clinical and research psychologist at Columbia University, through a process of inner dictation she identified as coming from Jesus.
What is ACIM?

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a spiritual teaching that has attracted a large and diverse audience, including Christians, New Age followers, and those who identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” It was first published in 1976 by the Foundation for Inner Peace. Its standard edition has sold over three million copies. The New York Times described it in 2019 as a “esoteric bible that went mainstream.”

Its claim that Jesus authored the book through an Inner Voice has provoked a variety of responses, from deep devotion and commitment to disdain and dismissal. But the question of authorship is not really the heart of ACIM. It is a course in the spiritual life, and its ideas are universal, not religious. Its message is that love is more powerful and more rational than fear, and the physical world as we perceive it through our senses is a mass illusion.

Helen Schucman was a tenured associate professor of medical psychology at Columbia University in New York City when she began to have a series of inner visions and heightened dreams that culminated in an experience of waking clairvoyance during which an Inner Voice told her, “This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.” Over the next seven years, she transcribed the text of the Course through what she identified as dictation. She was assisted by William Thetford, a colleague at the hospital, and Ken Wapnick, a psychologist who became her husband.

The course teaches that God is Love and that forgiveness is the path to freedom. It calls for a total reversal of ordinary perception, and encourages the practice of forgiveness as a moment-by-moment discipline that transforms attitudes and behaviors. Its heady mix of reinterpreted Christian language, modern psychological thought, and Eastern metaphysics makes it an unusual, and challenging, spiritual teaching.

The Course draws heavily on Shakespeare, and the text contains many references to iambic pentameter, the poetic form used in Hamlet. Nevertheless, it does not seek to replace Christianity as the faith of its readers, although it uses many Christian symbols as metaphors and employs a vocabulary and style of language that are generally associated with Christianity.
ACIM Text

A Course in Miracles teaches that the separation from God was an illusion and that forgiveness is the way back to the Creator. The curriculum is a combination of theoretical and practical work at both the conceptual and experiential levels. It is a spiritual path rather than a religious one. It uses Christian symbols but differs from them in many ways. It emphasizes experience rather than theology, and it is not intended to establish any new religion or belief system. It also reveals that it is only one version of the universal course, and that all paths lead to God in the end.

A book that has become a modern spiritual classic, ACIM is both intellectually stimulating and mystically inspiring. Its ideas are often contradictory and its form is sometimes illogical, but its message of forgiveness and healing has become a part of our shared consciousness. It has had a profound effect on many people, some of whom have devoted their lives to its teachings.

While Helen was a self-professed atheist and skeptic, she soon began experiencing inner visions, heightened dreams, and psychic experiences that culminated in the fall of 1965 when an inner voice spoke to her and said “This is a course in miracles; please take notes.” For seven years, Helen dictated the Course’s thoughts to Bill. The final product was published in 1976. Since that time it has become a widely read and influential work, earning the label of a miracle.

When the Course was originally published, it omitted some of the more personal material that occurred in the early portions and contained a number of errors and omissions. A more extensive editing process was undertaken for the second edition, and the urtext (the original typings done by Bill) and Helen’s shorthand notebooks were used to track down those deleted materials and the earlier errors. In addition, a great deal of additional text was added to the first Book of the Course. This Journey through the ACIM Text demonstrates how that additional material is used by using passages and clues from all three of the Course’s books to provide an enlightening reading experience.
ACIM Workbook

If you’re new to ACIM, the workbook is a great place to start. It contains 365 daily lessons that teach you to shift your perception and beliefs from the ego’s story of reality to the truth. The lessons are a combination of spiritual and psychological insights, with the goal of helping you shift your mind to love and acceptance. It also includes an invaluable list of tools to help you on your journey, including meditations, mindfulness exercises, and a healing prayer.

The workbook is also a guide to the ACIM Text, which provides an explanation of its ideas and concepts. It’s designed to help you understand the principles of the course so that you can apply them in your everyday life. The text is available online, and you can read it at your own pace or purchase a hard copy.

ACIM is a universal spiritual teaching that is not affiliated with any religion. Although it uses Christian terminology and evokes some religious themes, the Course teaches that there are many paths to God and that all of them lead to oneness with the divine. The Course says that it is not the only path, but one of “many thousands” (M-I.1.4).

Helen Schucman was a clinical psychologist who believed that the Course was written through inner dictation from Jesus or the Holy Spirit. She and her husband Bill Thetford were both professors of medical psychology at Columbia University in New York City when they wrote the Course. They had both been atheists and agnostics until they began receiving the material for the Course.

A major theme in the Course is forgiveness. It teaches that guilt is the root cause of all suffering and that forgiveness is the way to release it. It explains that when we forgive others, we release ourselves from the belief that we are separate from them and from God. This enables us to remember the truth, which is that we are all one. We can find peace and happiness by learning to see the unity of all things, and by accepting that our true home is heaven, which is eternally free.
ACIM Manual for Teachers

The Manual for Teachers is the third book in the three-part ACIM curriculum. It answers common questions about the Course and helps students understand its teachings. Like the Text and Workbook, it is a self-study spiritual thought system designed to help people transform their lives by practicing forgiveness. It uses Christian terminology, but also evokes universal spiritual themes and incorporates Eastern religious ideas.

It is written on a high intellectual level with sophisticated metaphysical, theological and psychological concepts integrated into its teaching throughout its three books. Because of this, people who are not especially intellectual or have little training in these areas may find the reading difficult at times. However, this does not mean that they cannot benefit un curso de milagros from ACIM if they are willing to do the work involved.

During the first several weeks of the scribing, the inner dictation was more personal and intimate. It was as if Helen and Jesus were sitting on her living room couch having a conversation. They would discuss the lessons, and Helen would ask Jesus questions about them. Jesus would correct her mishearings and explain some of the more complex concepts in the text.

The scribing was completed in about seven months, and the manuscript was published shortly afterward. The original version of the text contains some material that was not included in the final publication, mainly because it was not seen as relevant to its central message. This included some chapters that talked about Helen’s relationship with her husband Bill and their troubled marriage. It also contained some material that deviated from the Freudian psychology that was being taught at the time by Bill and Helen.

While the text contains much of the fundamental teachings of the Course, it emphasizes that it is only one path among many thousands that lead to God. It is not meant to be a replacement for any other religion or belief system.

The manual was originally released as a separate volume, but is now part of the Combined Edition of the Course along with the Text and Workbook for Students. It is written in question-and-answer format and addresses the most commonly asked questions about the Course, providing further clarification of its theoretical concepts in the context of the Workbook’s practical applications.